1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera using a digital signal processor and a microprocessor so as to perform a signal processing and a recording processing of image data.
The present invention also relates to a control integrated circuit (IC) for use with an electronic camera incorporating the digital processor and the microprocessor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, electronic cameras that are equipped with a microprocessor that controls a system and a signal processing engine (for example, a JPEG compression IC) as a hardware device are known.
Since the signal processing engine is structured as a hardware device, it is very advantageous in processing image data at high speed. However, since this signal processing engine processes a signal in compliance with a predetermined algorithm, it is not suitable for use such as flexibly changing the contents of a signal processing.
A software signal processing of a microprocessor is generally used for such use.
For example, for an image compression (for example, JPEG compression) according to a conventional recording format, a signal processing engine as a hardware device is used. On the other hand, for a manufacturer provided image compression (for example, loss-less compression for raw data), a software signal processing of a microprocessor is used.
However, in addition to the software signal processing on image data, the microprocessor should control the system of the electronic camera (for example, control of an image sensor and recording on a recording medium).
This increases the load of processing on the microprocessor, resulting in delaying the processings of the electronic camera.